Strolling into Bagelshop goes to make you wish to say “Completely happy New 12 months” — and never simply on Jan. 1. This week, the Donelson restaurant is launching “New 12 months, All 12 months,” its initiative to rejoice the varied New 12 months traditions that totally different religions and cultures observe, introducing prospects to these totally different customs. Given the state of political and cultural division within the metropolis, the nation and the world over, the collection presents Nashvillians a chance to return collectively over meals. And as we’ve come to count on from house owners Max and Kayla Palmer, Bagelshop is doing this with scrumptious sandwiches.
The Palmers are reaching out to cooks throughout the town, asking them to create sandwiches that replicate their New 12 months celebrations — half conventional meals and half customs. The sandwiches shall be served at Bagelshop over the varied holidays, typically with the visitor cooks serving to make the sandwiches in home. Ten p.c of all New 12 months sandwich gross sales shall be donated to longtime native nonprofit The Nashville Meals Undertaking.
“We knew for a while that we needed to collab with Nashville cooks,” Max says. “We needed it to be greater than one-off.”
New 12 months, All 12 months begins this week with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New 12 months. (“In any case, this is a bagel store,” Kayla quips.) Bagelshop is partnering with Wes Scoggins, aka Jewish Cowboy — who’s recognized for pop-ups round city — whereas Scoggins launches his meals truck. Scoggins is understood for combining his Jewish heritage and his Texas roots in his meals. His New 12 months, All 12 months sandwich is the Manzana Melaza, which incorporates a sweet-and-sour braised brisket (a staple of many American Rosh Hashanah dinners) made with what he refers to as his secret weapon: apple molasses (aka melaza). “That’s the star of the present,” he says.
Candy meals are commonplace at a Rosh Hashanah desk. They set the intention of getting a candy new yr. Most individuals dip apples in honey as a symbolic candy gesture earlier than consuming.
Utilizing olive and apple wooden, Scoggins finishes his brisket in his signature smoker. “I’m actually happy with my brisket,” he says. He’ll layer the brisket with fennel, slaw, horseradish and apple butter and place it on a bagel. When Scoggins speaks to the Scene, he’s leaning towards an all the pieces bagel, however the rosemary bagel is a risk too.
Scoggins is trying ahead to not simply making the brisket sandwiches with the Palmers, however to speaking about brisket and Rosh Hashanah with prospects. “That is necessary — for this reason I’m persevering with Jewish Cowboy,” he says of his undertaking, which he initially meant as simply an excuse to serve brisket to his co-workers. “I didn’t assume deeply about it at first, however the responses in the previous few years have advised me that is of particular significance.”
Kayla, who was not raised Jewish, has been studying Jewish traditions and appreciating Jewish meals since marrying Max. “We don’t get to share our Jewishness in our area that always, and with the Excessive Holidays, now could be our probability,” Max says.
“It’s form of loopy how there’s nearly a New 12 months’s celebration monthly for the following yr,” he says. “We simply appeared over the calendar and began matching New 12 months’s celebrations with cooks and reaching out to them and seeing what we will do.”
the Manzana Melaza sandwich by Jewish Cowboy
Up after Rosh Hashanah is Diwali, which this yr begins on the finish of October. Noticed by many Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists in India, Pakistan, Malaysia and past, Diwali is a pageant of recent beginnings, celebrating the triumph of fine over evil and together with a day of honoring one’s ancestors. Tailor’s Vivek Surti, a Nashville native who describes his award-winning cooking as “first-generation American,” needed to create a sandwich that will seize the joyful Diwali celebrations in his household. As a result of Diwali is widely known at dwelling, many of us welcome family and friends to their homes. And the place there are company, there’s meals.
Surti is working with the Palmers to develop the Dabeli, a sandwich impressed by conventional Gujarati avenue meals. Dabeli interprets to “pressed,” and that’s what that is — a steamed, potato-and-spiced-filled glory topped with crunchy chili peanuts, onions and a sweet-tangy tamarind chutney and toasted ghee. The crew has not but determined what flavors of bagels they’ll use. (Surti suspects this could be the primary Dabeli on a bagel in historical past.) “It’s a carb-on-carb sandwich,” Surti says.
After that, the crew will work with Mesut Kelik, co-owner of Edessa Restaurant on Nolensville Pike, to create a sandwich for Newroz — the Kurdish model of Nowruz, celebrating spring and the arrival of a brand new yr. Nashville has the biggest Kurdish inhabitants in North America, and serving to the town’s wider inhabitants respect Newroz traditions is a part of the inclusivity the Palmers are fostering. After that, 2025 presents the chance for Chinese language New 12 months, Songkran (Thai New 12 months) and plenty of others.
The Palmers aren’t the one ones to see how acknowledging and honoring an inclusive calendar could possibly be good for the town. “I launched a decision to acknowledge a multicultural calendar as a result of the variety of traditions and cultures is what makes Nashville and Tennessee really particular,” says Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville). “Whereas it was sadly blocked by the Republican supermajority, it’s initiatives like [Bagelshop’s] ‘New 12 months, All 12 months’ promotion that spotlight the richness of our metropolis.
“By celebrating holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, and Kurdish Newroz,” Behn continues, “they remind us that Nashville’s power lies in its multiculturalism and the distinctive contributions every group brings to our shared expertise.”
